Mexico City, Feb 15 (EFE). – Freight transport organizations paralyzed Mexico’s highways on Thursday with a national strike called to denounce the increase in violence by organized crime, which in 2023 caused them losses estimated at 7 billion pesos (more than $400 million).
After the National Chamber of Freight Transportation (Canacar) reported an increase of almost 5% in truck robberies in 2023, tens of thousands of truckers demanded action from the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who accused them of being “conservative” and refused to engage in dialogue.
The Mexican Transport Organization Alliance (Amotac), the country’s main transport guild with more than 100,000 members and an estimated half a million vehicles, blocked the country’s main highways.
A protest across the country
The drivers’ protest stretched from Tamaulipas, on the border with the United States, to Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala.
The Amotac delegate in San Cristóbal, Chiapas, William Arellano, told EFE: “It hurts to lose drivers day after day, safety on the highways is minimal.”
As in other parts of the country, the demonstration in Chiapas began at 8:00 a.m., when about 100 units stopped on the San Cristóbal-Chiapa de Corzo highway and the Ciudad Comitan-Cuauhtémoc international highway.
The organization assured that for 10 years, the carriers have been pointing out the most violent routes to the Mexican government, but the authorities are “overwhelmed.”
“Here in the state we were attacked on the Mal Pasito route, and my brother died in that attack, it is very hard,” Marco Antonio López, Amotac delegate in Comitán, told EFE.
Human and financial losses
According to the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin), in 2023 the industry lost around 7 billion pesos (more than $400 million) due to attacks on commercial vehicles.
Meanwhile, Canacar reported in January that there were nearly 13,000 robberies with and without violence in 2023, and an estimated 50 to 150 drivers were murdered.
“To the comrades who are on the border, to the transporters, they have taken away their units, they have asked them to pay a fee (extortion), and if they don’t (pay) they disappear, that is the saddest thing,” commented Pascual Hernandez, a transporter who protested in Chiapas.
Differences with the government
Although this is the second national protest this month, President López Obrador affirmed that “there are leaders of these organizations who are militants of conservative parties, and since the elections are coming up (on June 2), they are taking advantage.”
“We offer them: Let’s see, let’s talk, let’s find a solution, but the leaders don’t want to. For this reason, I take the opportunity to speak to the carriers, to tell them that we are with them and committed to protecting them”, he expressed in their morning conference.
The Secretary of the Interior, Luisa María Alcalde, stated that “120 meetings have been held with the members of Amotac,” to whom they promised to send 600 new members of the National Guard and 2,000 patrols.
But the president assured that leaders “left the table because they already have a cunning plan”. EFE
ppc-mmf/mcd/ics